All in the Spirit of Christmas
by Chocoholic Bec
Summary: A Christmassykinda story involving the twins, pranks, Monty Python, and a statue of Umbridge. Set in OotP. Also a bit of RH, by the way. Reviews are very appreciated!


**If this was mine, I'd be a lot richer than I am. It's J.K. Rowling's. Go away.**

It was a freezing cold, wintry Saturday, about two weeks before the end of term, and Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ronald, Fred and George Weasley were sitting as close to the fireplace as they could, without burning their trousers (or skirt, for Hermione). They were only sharing the common room with one other group - three second-years acting out the entirety of _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_, in very loud voices. Most of the other Gryffindors were huddled under their bedclothes, even though it was barely five in the afternoon.

Hermione threw _Hogwarts, a History_ down next to her, although she'd barely begun reading. 'How can I read when you two-' (pointing at the twins) 'are throwing snowballs in the fireplace again?!'

Ron laughed. 'It's too cold to study, Herm-Oh no, not again!' The card tower he'd been building from Exploding Snap cards had blown up in his face for the third time that afternoon.

Ginny giggled, having just come through the doors. 'Nice look, Ron. The whole burnt-face thing. Heard it's really fashionable in Paris now. Anyway, have you guys seen that awful statue of Umbridge they've got out near her office? Honestly, that woman has no self-confidence if she needs a statue to remind herself of how... _wonderful_ she is.'

'Where's what's-his-face? Your _boy_friend?' smirked George.

Ginny shrugged. 'Michael got detention. We were having a snowball fight and one of the snowballs hit Snape right on the eyebrow. It was pretty funny.'

Fred grinned. 'Probably the first bath the greaseball's had in ten years.'

'_Fred!_' gasped Hermione, but the others were too busy laughing to notice.

Ginny set her bag down. 'What are those kids over there doing?'

The second-years paused. 'We're not _kids_!' yelled one tiny boy, from the other end of the room. 'I'm thirteen! So is Jane!'

Harry rolled his eyes. 'Acting out _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_.'

Ginny looked amused. 'No way! I love that movie!'

'It's a _muggle_ movie,' Hermione interjected.

'Yeah, so? Dad got it for us, when he got a div- vib-... vid-yo tape recorder.'

'Right.'

Ron, by this stage, had given up on his card tower and had started debating with Harry over whether Comets or Cleansweeps were the better broom. Fred was adjudicating the argument, and George was watching the three second-years.

'_Bring me... a shrubbery!_' yelled the tiny boy. And that's where the idea really began.

Calling a time-out to the debate, George whispered something in Fred's ear. The two of them looked at each other and grinned their most evil grin.

'Brother dear-'

'And sister dear-'

'And Harry-'

'And Hermione-'

'We have-'

'The best-'

'Prank idea-'

'This century!'

Hermione raised an eyebrow. 'So are you going to tell us?'

'Well-'

'We'll get the statue of Umbridge-'

'Transfigure it into a shrubbery-'

'Deck it with tinsel-'

'And send it back!'

'All in the spirit of Christmas, of course!'

Ginny smirked. 'Brilliant!'

'I'll get my Invisibility Cloak,' said Harry. 'We might need it.'

Hermione sighed. 'I guess she does deserve it. But...'

Ron rubbed his scorched nose. 'What about putting a star on the top of her head? I've got a star you can put a candle in. And Hermione can do that burn-for-a-month trick of hers.'

'How are we going to get the statue up here?' asked Harry, logically. 'We can't just _accio_ it. People would notice a three-ton statue of the toad-lady zooming around the halls. And it's too heavy to carry.'

All of them looked faintly dismayed, except George. 'Thought of that. We can chuck the Cloak over the statue, then levitate it and push it along. Simple!'

'What if she comes in while we're putting the tinsel on or something?' asked Ginny.

George laughed. 'Thought of that too. We put a protection line around us to stop her from walking straight into it - you know how good Fred is at protection lines - and I've set up an Umbridge-detector right above the Pink Lady. So we'll have time to put the Cloak back over the statue and we can pretend the line's just there so we don't hurt anyone with practising our charms and Transfiguration. We won't get caught.'

Everyone looked at Hermione. 'Okay, fine.' she said. 'I don't see why not. It'll be fun.'

Fred and George hi-fived each other. 'Yesss!' yelled George.

'We knew you'd come around eventually,' said Fred. 'We just weren't sure if it would be this year or next year.'

Hermione looked at him as scathingly as she could. Ginny ruined the moment by doing a handstand and waving at the second-years with her feet, accidentally showing the entire common room her pink-spotted knickers.

Harry blushed and looked away, then yawned to disguise his bright red face. 'Well, I'm in.'

'So am I,' said Ron.

'And me,' said Ginny, now right way up.

'Fine, me too,' said Hermione.

Harry jumped up. 'The Cloak! I almost forgot! Come on, Ron; let's get your star while we're at it.' The two of them raced up the stairwell.

'Hermione?'

Hermione jumped. 'Yes, Fred?'

'Do you have any tinsel concealed on your person?'

She shook her head. 'I'll ask Professor Flitwick. I'll tell him... I'll tell him I'm putting them on the common room Christmas tree.'

'Naughty, naughty, Hermione!' teased Fred, shaking his finger at her.

She ran to the door. 'Well, it's true, in a manner of speaking!'

George shook his head sadly. 'I don't know what we'll do with you, my dear Hermione. Lying to a teacher? Oh, dear me.'

Hermione laughed. 'I'll be back in a minute. He'll be in his classroom, I expect.'

By the time the door had slammed shut behind her, Ron and Harry were back, panting for breath. 'Here,' said Harry, holding out the silvery cloak. George snatched it. 'Me 'n Fred'll go deal with the statue.' He walked out the door of the common room, Fred close behind him.

Ron took a rather ragged-looking yellow glass star out of his pocket, along with a half-melted white candle. Setting them on the table, he sat back in the chair closest to the fire. Harry sat opposite him.

'So. Where were we, then?'

'Well, Comets have far superior braking systems...'

'Cleansweeps are more resilient!'

'Comets are much faster.'

'Cleansweeps are way easier to turn!'

They were still debating like this when Hermione got back, holding half her own body weight in tinsel, and half that again in baubles, and strings of beads. Tutting quietly, she put the tinsel on another chair and sat down next to Ron, whose ears turned bright red, although he didn't stop arguing the merits of Cleansweeps over Comets. Ignoring him, she began chatting to Ginny, who had been reading an old edition of _Witch Weekly_.

Harry had just gotten to 'Comets handle bad weather better,' when Fred and George reappeared, statue in tow.

'Easy as pie!' said Fred, sitting down with an audible _plonk_. 'We chucked the Cloak over the statue, levitated it and pulled it along. Just as we planned.'

George nodded, sitting down next to his twin. 'Only glitch was when McGonagall turned up and asked us what we were doing. Just walking along in the corridors, minding our own business, did you hear the statue of Umbridge has disappeared, Professor? I think it's being cleaned, tell Professor Umbridge, would you?' he said, imitating Fred.

Fred pushed him. 'My voice isn't _that_ high pitched. She said she'd pass it on, anyway.' He smirked. 'I so rock.'

'As do I, my dear brother,' added George.

Hermione coughed. 'Weren't we going to Transfigure this statue? And what about the protective line?'

Fred bowed. 'I shall draw the protective line.' Taking out his wand, he muttered something about how the unicorn hair would be falling apart by now and held his wand out in front of his body. Spinning in a circle, he mumbled, '_Tectus_!' A shimmering line appeared in a ring around them, stopping just in front of the fireplace and just outside the circle of chairs.

George smiled. 'Good work, Freddy-boy.' He turned to Hermione. 'You would do us the honour of turning the statue to a shrub, my fair lady?'

She shook her head, resigned. 'Fine._ Fruticis existere marmoris_!'

The life-size statue of Umbridge went green, then almost liquid, before settling into the exact same shape as before – namely, the toad-lady, Umbridge – but made of clipped green leaves instead.

Ron gave Hermione a thumbs-up. 'Good one, 'Mione!'

She smiled shyly. 'Ta.'

Ron's ears turned red. So did Hermione's cheeks.

Fred and George looked at each other with somewhat amused looks on their faces.

'One day they'll manage to work out their own feelings,' said Ginny quietly, from behind the twins.

Harry nodded. 'Possibly before they're eighty years old.'

A loud buzzing noise interrupted this cheerful conversation.

'Oh no! Umbridge!' yelped Fred. 'Quick, where's the Cloak?'

'Ginny! You're sitting on it, you idiot!' said George.

Ginny looked sulky. Whipping it out from underneath her, she chucked it over the topiary figure, and not a moment too soon. Umbridge came sauntering through the door within a few seconds – just enough time for Hermione to grab out books, for Harry, Ron, and the twins to find parchment, quills and ink, and for Ginny to get out her wand. Umbridge looked vaguely annoyed to find them all hard at work instead of making mischief like normal.

'What are you all doing?' she asked, poisonously sweet.

Ginny flicked her wand idly. 'Well, I'm practicing Transfiguration, Professor Umbridge.'

Hermione flicked a page of her book. 'Reading about the man who invented the _Wingardium Leviosa _spell for Charms, Professor Umbridge. Did you know he owned seven cats, five dogs, eighteen mice, three toads and four snakes? He invented the charm to stop the cats and snakes eating the mice.'

Fred smiled sweetly. 'I'm doing the homework on non-verbal spells you set me, Professor Umbridge. So's George, over here.'

George nodded seriously, dipping his quill into ink and scrawling something on his parchment.

'I'm doing Potions homework on Veritaserum, Professor Umbridge,' said Ron.

'I'm doing Astronomy homework on the moons of Jupiter, Professor Umbridge,' said Harry.

Ginny waved her wand. '_Porci e sellae_!' she yelled, pointing the wand at a nearby chair. The chair changed into a pig, but instead of being pink, it was patterned with cabbage roses on a dull blue base, like the chair had been. Ginny sighed. 'I need to practice more.' She waved her wand again. '_Rursus e sellae_,' she muttered. Now there was a chair with a snout instead of a headrest. She groaned.

Umbridge tried to walk forward to have a closer look at the snout on the chair. Bumping into the protective shield, she frowned. 'Why is there a protective shield up? Misters Fred and George Weasley? Do you know about this?'

Fred got up, setting his parchment to the side. 'It's so nobody else gets hurt with Ginny's Transfiguration practice. We wouldn't want to turn Jane over there-' (pointing at one of the second-years) '-into a pig instead of the chair. These spells are difficult to reverse on humans, and Ginny's aim's pathetic.' Ginny scowled and shoved Fred.

Professor Umbridge nodded. 'I see. It's very… unusual for you to be worrying about your schoolmates so much, Mister Weasley.'

Fred took on a 'wrongfully accused and very hurt' expression. 'Well, Professor Umbridge, I just feel so responsible for those young housemates of mine.'

'Hey!' yelled one of the second-years. 'We're not _young_!'

Hermione shut the book. 'Please, Professor Umbridge, don't let us keep you. We're just fine.'

Umbridge nodded – after all, Hermione was a prefect. She walked out of the room quickly, obviously looking forward to drinking her vilely sweet tea in her vilely sweet room.

The group breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Harry took the Invisibility Cloak off the Umbridge shrubbery. 'Now, where's that tinsel?'

Ginny grabbed the tinsel. 'Here. Let's get to work!'

Within five minutes, the Umbridge-bush had been transformed. Tinsel had been wrapped around her short neck and her chubby waist, baubles hung from her earlobes and the top of her shirt, and beads draped around her face. As a final touch, Ron handed Hermione the yellow glass star and the candle, now lit. ''Mione? Can you do that burn-for-a-month thing of yours?'

Hermione rolled her eyes. 'Fine, whatever. _Ardeo prolunae_!' The candle flame flared brighter for a moment, then went back to burning normally. Inserting the candle into a convenient hole in the base, she passed it to George. 'You do it. You thought of this to begin with.'

George took the candle. 'With pleasure.'

He set the star on top of the absurd bow that she always wore, and stepped back to admire the glory of the Umbridge-shaped Christmas tree.

All of them went to put the statue back this time. Putting it down where it normally stood, all of them smiled. The candle lit up the corridor.

Hermione suddenly smiled even wider. 'I have an idea… can you all check to make sure nobody's coming?'

The rest of the group ran to check.

'Stay there, as sentries,' said Hermione, seemingly absorbed in her next task. Whipping out her wand, she traced a circle in the air. '_Oris Umbridge_!' she whispered.

An empty speech bubble appeared next to the head of the shrub. Words appeared in it, but Hermione was at the end of the corridor, muttering to everyone. Harry, Ron, Ginny and the twins laughed.

'C'mon!' said Ginny. 'I have _got _to see this!'

Inside the speech bubble, new words were forming every half-minute. The group crowded around to see what the topiary Umbridge was saying.

'No thinking anything original!'

'Detention! My office, now!'

'Five hundred lines!'

'The Ministry knows everything!'

Everyone cracked up, except Hermione, who was looking pretty pleased with herself.

'Let's go around the corner. I want to see her face when she sees this,' said Harry, when he'd stopped laughing.

Less than a minute later, they heard a loud shriek. Everyone hiding under Harry's Cloak (although it barely fitted them all), they looked around the corner, to see the real Umbridge trying to turn the shrub back into a statue, to no avail. Fred smirked. 'I made it so that only George or I could change it,' he whispered. 'Let's go back to the common room.'

Twenty minutes later, Harry and Ron were having their Cleansweeps vs. Comets debate again, Hermione and Ginny were poring over '_Ten Ways to Make Your Wizard Boy Go Mad_,' in _Witch Weekly_, and Fred and George were playing Exploding Snap. The second-years had finally finished reciting _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_, and were playing some wizarding variant of _Twister_.

George called a halt to everything after getting his fingers singed for the tenth time. 'Well. We've turned a statue into a bush, lied to various teachers, driven Umbridge insane, and given a chair a snout. All in all, a pretty good day, no?'

Everyone laughed and nodded, except for Hermione and Ron. Hermione was scrabbling through her bag, looking for _Hogwarts, A History_, and Ron was helping her, making sure their hands touched at every possible opportunity.

'Next prank,' muttered Fred to George out of the corner of his mouth. 'Getting those two together.'

The End?


End file.
